A BENCH seat will serve as a useful tribute to Shalimar Park Pre-School’s founders.
The Dandenong North centre unveiled the chair at 40th birthday celebrations on Saturday 26 November.
Original committee members and today’s leaders shared the bench for several photographs on the day.
A plaque on the bench reads “Dedicated to the original founders of Shalimar Park Pre-School”.
Jan and Terry Flynn were founding committee members who campaigned for the kindergarten, and attended the celebrations.
“Two blokes knocked on our door” to enlist help to establish Shalimar Park, Ms Flynn said.
“There were five of us to start with,” she said.
“I was the first enrolments officer. I was working full-time back then.”
She said the kinder doors opened during the last term of 1976.
“I didn’t have children but we were planning to have a family in the next few years,” she said.
“My husband used to write the newsletter and I used to type it, and there was a bloke around the corner who had a printer who used to print it for us and we’d put it in letterboxes.”
Also at the event were kinder teacher and former student Jessica Battershill, and her teacher Lena Saracino.
“I have fun memories of playing outside and the teachers always being very positive and helping,” Ms Battershill said.
“I always felt very welcomed. I had a really good sense of belonging.
“There are parents I went to kinder with who are bringing their kids in.”
Ms Saracino left the centre about two years ago to help look after her grandkids.
“The centre’s certainly come a long way,” she said.
“We’ve always had some really amazing committee members who’ve been very dedicated to keeping the kindergarten running and on track.”
